Farm Day – May 2015

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Robin

Where is Dona when you need her? As much as I like taking photos I don’t take very many on a Farm Day because I’m distracted. Seven Farm Club members were here this morning to help with some specific tasks.

We accomplished those easily all the while enjoying each other’s company. This is such a great group of friends First we caught all 76 lambs. We weighed all of them and vaccinated the older ones. We chose four ewe lambs and 4 ram lambs as the most likely options (narrowing it to 2 each later) for taking to Black Sheep Gathering next month. Because my flock lambs in March the lambs are still young and it’s hard to think who I might want to take to the show in June. We also caught the 4 yearlings who did not lamb this year to choose which of them I’d take and also to replace their lamb ear tags with larger easier-to-read tags. After we finished with the lambs I showed Gynna how to go about halter breaking lambs that she is going to take home with her in a few weeks.The birds were happy when we finished in the barn because then they had free access to their babies without worrying about all the people and dogs.

Timm Ranch wool ready for the mill

After lunch Kathleen, Gynna, and Peggy went to the barn and helped me change this pile into……this one. By sucking the air out of the bags with the shop vac we condensed that pile of wool into about half the space. That’s a much easier job with more than one person.

Ginny found an out-of-the-way place to sleep.Later this afternoon Dan put the mower on the tractor and I mowed the pasture behind the barn.

I’ve been trying to clean out the freezer and I found a turkey the other day. It’s in the oven now and I’m getting ready for turkey dinner (without all the trappings because that would take too much work).

Planting Tomatoes Across the Road

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Robin

We finally found out what crop was going in across the road.We suspected after the soil was worked over and over and finally bedded and rolled smooth and flat like this. Then for a few days these tractors and other supporting equipment (water truck, fork lift, portable toilets) were parked at the edge of the field. On Sunday planting began. Although I’ve seen the tomato planters (people and equipment) working from a distance I didn’t know how it all worked. There are six seats for people in the front and several shelves for flats of tomato seedlings on the back of the transplanter. (I looked it up and that’s what the equipment is called. One brand name is Ferrari.) A truck hauled in huge wooden crates full of flats of tomato seedlings and the forklift moved the crates from the truck to where they were needed. I walked over there Sunday evening and took more photos.Here are empty crates filled with the seedling trays. They struck me as interesting.

I looked up on Google how the transplanter works and found videos of some smaller ones. In those the person places individual seedlings into funnel shapes that are part of a revolving horizontally positioned disc. There is more to it than that but as the disc goes around and the tractor moves forward the seedlings drop through the funnel thing into the ground.In this equipment there were no horizontal discs with funnel shapes. Instead the seedlings drop down between those two metal “wheels” in the very center of the photo. (The wheel in the foreground is the one of another pair, but the other wheel is just out of the photo to the left.) You can barely see a left-over tomato seedling between those wheels. At least I can because I know it’s there. So the person sits on that yellow seat (and there is another right under where I am taking the photo) and places the seedling in position but I’m still not sure exactly how that part works. Part of the equipment is making a small hole or furrow into which the seedling will fall. At the same time the tractor is driving forward (towards me, the photographer) and the metal wheels serve to fill in dirt around the just-planted seedling. At the same time there are water barrels on the tractor and somewhere that water is being injected into the soil right around the roots.Am I getting a little carried away here about something as mundane as planting tomatoes? I am fascinated with the combination of automation and requirement for people. And living in the Central Valley of California one could use this as a platform to expound on social issues, political issues, and water issues. But right now I’m just interested in that simple question of “how do we get tomato sauce?” because I’m pretty sure that these are processing tomatoes.

I walked around the field (my usual walk Across the Road). The field wasn’t completely planted yet and this little seedling was on top of one of the crates still full of seedlings. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to live through the night so I carried it home and planted it. We’ll see if it can keep up with all of it’s kin (if I can save it from gophers). The part of the field that was planted has two rows of seedlings in each bed. They pulled a ditcher along the edges and are beginning to irrigate today. Stay tuned to follow the story of the Tomatoes Across the Road.

May 4, 1916

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Robin

As I wrote the date today I realized that it is my mom’s birthday. She died in 2008. Here are some photos as I’d like to remember her instead of the the shell of a person taken by Alzheimer’s.Mom (long before I was born) and her brother, Walt, who was the youngest of the four siblings and died just last month.Another from “the old days”. Mom was a WAC during WW2.My brother and I were born in San Francisco and lived there until 1965.

We moved to Sonoma County, CA near Cotati in 1965 and Mom had the place until sometime in the late 70’s. Mom and cows Raising us as a divorced “older” mother (having kids at age 38 & 40) Mom faced personal challenges. It was an additional challenge to move from San Francisco to “the country”. We lived on 2-1/2 acres in what I remember as a fabulous old house (the termites and drafts and well problems didn’t bother us kids) and mom encouraged–enabled–us to learn a love of the outdoors and animals. She had no experience with livestock but through 4-H I raised dairy heifers and eventually a milk cow. My brother raised sheep……and when he left for college Mom, who had always knit and learned to spin around that time, had her own small flock of sheep.Mom on the front steps of our house with Murka, named after a dog in a book called Thanks to Noah by George Papashvily. (It’s amazing how things come back to you. Seeing this photo made me remember that book. I just googled it, guessing at a spelling for that last name, found it on Amazon, and bought it!) This photo is probably from the late 60’s. Mom and Pot Shop During those years in Cotati, Mom turned her pottery hobby into a business (sound familiar?) and supported us by selling pottery and teaching.Although she made mostly functional high-fire pieces (plates, mugs, teapots, etc) she liked to make some more artistic raku pieces. I remember her pulling the fiery hot pots from the kiln, plunging them into a metal bucket full of straw, and quickly covering with a lid. Mom and her friend, Ursula, collaborated on some fountains. This is at our back door. I was just thinking that this photo is kind of like me with my Farm Club and spinner friends. Yikes! Mom is younger in most of these photos than I am now. By the way, I found this on the wall at the Barinaga Sheep Dairy in Marin County a few years ago and I am sure that it is one of Ursula’s pieces. This isn’t much of a photo but it is probably typical (and reminds me of my desk now except for the typewriter). Two cats on the desk. Clutter. That’s mom’s foray into stained glass in the window. 1990s This is mom with her five grandchildren taken probably about 1997 or so. That’s my three on the left and my brother’s kids on the right.

I’m glad I have these photos to fall back on when I think of mom’s last years.

Fuzzy Ram Horns

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Robin

It’s hard to believe that these two rams were born just over a year ago. This year’s rams will look like that next year. But for now… fuzzy ram horns …it’s hard to look tough when you have fuzz on your horns.

Ginny’s Favorite Things

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Robin

Rusty and Maggie don’t fetch. They don’t see the point. Ginny, on the other hand, has learned the fun of getting people to throw things for her. She is obsessed with this $10 toy. In fact she is so obsessed that I can see the focus that Rusty has for herding is the way Ginny acts with this toy. Hopefully when the time comes Ginny will be able to think about sheep with the same concentration. Right now it’s fun for her… …and it’s good for me to have a way to help her burn off energy with something as easy as standing in one place and throwing something. Ginny also loves to swim in the canal Across the Road. In a recent blog post I described how Ginny is always on leash now on our walks. Swimming in the canal is an exception. So far when I let her go into the water (which did not work well on leash) she hasn’t tried to run off and chase birds. But I don’t let her off for long–only while she wants to swim. I decided to combine the Toy and swimming. I started by throwing it right close to the edge in case I was the one that had to retrieve it.

It became obvious that I would not be the one going in the water so I threw it a little farther.

And farther. No problem. On one throw however it was much closer to the far bank and that’s where Ginny got out… …and then left the Toy. I told her to go back for it.

She brought it back by walking along the bank until she got to one of the above-water crossings.

I think she would make a dock-diving dog or whatever they call that sport where dogs (many border collies) jump to retrieve favorite toys in water. That would be fun if there was something close by. But we may have to stick with the canal.

Cute Grandbaby Photos

Posted on May 2, 2015 by Robin

It’s been almost a month since Kirby was here but I found some more photos that I took of her on the last day of her visit. They are so cute that I want to share. Here she is helping me pack up yarn for the mail. First has to pass a taste test. It looks as though she likes yarn. That’s a good sign! She seems to like the box just as much. First step. Yarn in box. Second step. Fold flaps over. I think I took over from here. Kirby with Aunt Meryl. With Grandpa.With Uncle Chris after a long day.

Ginny Gets Smarter (or Maybe it’s Me)

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Robin

I used to take all three dogs for walks Across the Road. Rusty and Maggie get to run off leash once we’re on the dirt roads and away from the main road. At first I let Ginny go too because she stayed with them and I knew that she would come with them if I called. Then Ginny discovered Birds. That was the end of the predictable behavior. Well, there was a new predictable behavior; hear the killdeer, run back and forth across the field after them. The killdeer fly in short bursts, land, change direction. Ginny would follow. I would follow her and it was only luck that I would eventually catch her. It only took me three episodes of this to realize that Ginny couldn’t be off-leash anymore. I tried to take her on our walks using a long-line, but that didn’t work for me. No matter which leash I used (long or short) I wasn’t getting the behavior I wanted (walk nicely next to me) and she wasn’t getting the exercise I thought she needed.

This was all about two months ago. I complained to a friend about my lack of control of my puppy and the poor job I was doing of training her. Here is the light-bulb moment. She told me what I think I knew but wasn’t admitting–that I needed to work with Ginny separately and not when the other dogs were around. Duh!

I started to take separate dog walks. Maggie and Rusty still get to go off-leash Across the Road… Ginny …but Ginny walks on a leash. Ginny I found my sheepdog training flag that I had forgotten about. Carrying that has helped her get the idea of not pulling on the leash. Ginny She stills gets the chance to look for ground squirrels at times. Ginny For more exercise… …we go on a bike ride. These photos were all taken about a month ago but……this one was taken last week. Ginny wasn’t too sure about those balers.

Jungle Sheep

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Robin

The sheep were glad to get the call to go to the next paddock yesterday morning. Their favorite spot in the pasture is the weeping willow… …which has branches so close to the ground now that I thought a branch had broken.We will have to cut these branches before they fall across the fence but it is good that the sheep can eat all the leaves off first.

#214 Memories

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Robin

I was looking for photos of a sheep named Diamond, #214, for the last blog post. I didn’t find the sheep but I found a lot of other favorite memories while searching #214. In no particular order: This is a sheep named Fran who is still here. In this photo she looks like her mom, Fanny who had spectacular horns. Columbia ewes at the Imperial Stock Ranch. I carry this yarn. In Vermont, setting up an arch for Katie and Kurtis’ wedding in 2011. Libby meeting Kirby a few days after she was born. All my kids and spouses (and spouse-to-be) in 2013. A mule train walking up the trail in the Grand Canyon on our visit in 2011. Dan and me on the same trip to the southwest in 2011. Zion National Park Modeling a poncho that I wore only a few years ago when I was in high school. I used this as a template for a recent woven poncho. Spring lambs. Maggie. This is a catapult, one of Katie’s senior projects in high school. Chris showing Stephany back in about 2006. Mushrooms Across the Road. Dogs in the canal on a recent walk. Chris’ Ironman finish in TX in 2013.

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